Archive for February, 2008
Southern California home sales drop to 20-year low
The median price of a home last month was $415,000, 18% below the peak median price reached last year and the lowest since January 2005.
Only 9,983 houses and condominiums were sold in the six-county region (Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties) last month, a data-tracking firm says.
Sales total was less [...]
Posted: February 14th, 2008 under Stock Market / Economy.
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Dow Jones up on W.B. offer / Retail Sales report
Dow Jones is up over 400 points this week from a positive (.3%) retail sales report, a positive change from the .4% loss in December of last year. Warren Buffett’s offer to help Bond Insurers also pushed the market up this week, as his company offered to take on the liability of approximately $800 [...]
Posted: February 13th, 2008 under Stock Market / Economy.
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Project Lifeline
Large lenders such as Wells Fargo, WAMA, Bank of America, Countrywide, Citigroup, and Chase have agreed to put a 30 day freeze on those who are about to lose their homes, in order to allow the property owners time to work out a solution to make their payments more affordable. This program will affect all [...]
Posted: February 12th, 2008 under Stock Market / Economy.
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The basics on Mortgage rates
Mortgage rates are moved by several factors, not related to the Fed:
1. MBS’s (Mortgage Backed Securities) compete against other bonds and treasuries for fixed income investors. However treasuries are 100% guaranteed to be repaid, and mortgages are not, so mortgages carry more of a risk, thus mortgage rates must be priced higher to counteract [...]
Posted: February 11th, 2008 under Stock Market / Economy.
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Guide to MS Certs
MCP: One current MS certification exam.
MCSA:
Core Exams: 70-290, 70-291
Core Exams (Client operating system – one exam required): 70-270 or 70-620 or 70-210
Elective Exams (One exam required): 70-089, 70-227, 70-228, 70-235, 70-236, 70-262, 70-284, 70-299, 70-350, 70-431, 70-445, 70-500, 70-501, 70-620, 70-624, 70-630, 70-631
As an alternative to the electives that are listed in [...]
Posted: February 11th, 2008 under IT World.
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“Who’s economy are we really stimulating?”
The US dollar rises, the House passes the Economic Stimulus plan, and the Dow Jones is up 46 points today…
“Essentially, if we’re going to borrow $150 billion from China to finance the stimulus package, why not use it to do something useful instead of just handing it over to be spent on goods [...]
Posted: February 7th, 2008 under Stock Market / Economy.
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Dow Jones down 500 points in the past week
Despite the good earnings report from Disney yesterday, and the potential Yahoo bid from Microsoft, the Dow Jones is down 500 points in the past week.
Part of this is from the weak Services Sector (more than 80% of our economy) report that came out this week, various large companies lowering their guidance, companies laying [...]
Posted: February 7th, 2008 under Stock Market / Economy.
Comments: 1